The funding included in the House version, Democrats maintain, "does not provide sufficient resources needed to respond to Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee, and the wildfires in Texas, let alone other disasters that may occur in the next two months."

In their recently released continuing resolution (CR), GOP leaders included almost $3.7 billion in new disaster funds, most of which would go to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. Republicans have proposed to offset the most immediate allocations by slashing $1.5 billion from a Democratic program that subsidizes fuel-efficient vehicles and other green technologies.

The $6.9 billion provided by the Senate Democratic proposal is not offset by changes elsewhere in the budget.

The House Democrats contend the victims of recent disasters don't have time to wait for another drawn-out partisan battle over budget pay-fors.

"Eight times under George Bush, we responded to hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, other disasters — fires — and we did so by emergency funding," Hoyer said. "The Republicans supported President Bush's request for that, [and] we think they ought to support President Obama's request for that."

Hoyer also criticized the GOP's $1.5 billion offset provision, arguing that it would be "counterproductive to growth in jobs and to growth in the economy."

GOP leaders have defended the offsets in the CR, with Boehner characterizing the proposal as "a straightforward bill that keeps our focus on creating jobs and cutting spending, and eliminates the uncertainty caused by the specter of a government shutdown."